American history cannot help but to make one nostalgic; such were the dreams and hopes for a Republic. Today, (r)epublicans fight bitter ideological battles between Manhattan progressives of the Roosevelt and Taft variety and aristocratic neo-conservatives bred as bastards of a drunken tryst between Nixon and George H.W. Bush.
While the Jeffersonian utopia of agrarian Unitarianism, as well as Teddy Roosevelt’s dreams of rapid American colonialism, have been set aside for German philosophies and idealism – the modern varieties of Rationalist political philosophy born of Hegel and Kant – twisted through the racism and statism of Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, this modern incarnation of American political imagination seems ever more dull and nauseating.
While Rousseau’s vision died after the War of 1812, as Americans realized that Hamilton wasn’t the pompous ass we all thought him to be, a modern and somewhat French populism has reawakened like Smaug in the Lonely Mountain. Abraham Lincoln may have been the first and last Republican of the 19th century, remembered more for his liberation of slaves than his Whig upbringing. It wasn’t until Calvin Coolidge that we rediscovered that protestant ethic reminiscent of John and Abigail Adams.
Calvin Coolidge was common sense and Patrick Henry reborn.
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. – Calvin Coolidge
Coolidge, like Lincoln, desired racial equality and just equity between men. He brought virtue back to the White House; an antagonist of waste, of fraud, and of corruption. Calvin attacked no one, but appealed to the common sense and dignity of a nation that had not demonstrated they possessed either. They did of course. It took a President to recognize it.
President Coolidge was no libertarian, rejecting corporate and factory abuse wherever he found it; but neither was he a statist or an idealist, believing that a small, limited government best served the interests of the American People. With no idealism to hold him down and no ideological masters to impress, Coolidge was often restrained until corruption or graft or industrial greed provoked him to action.
Of course Coolidge, like Reagan, was a brief respite from our collective march toward corporate and federal “progress”. In truth, we’ve had only two such relaxing administrations. Yes, there have been lazy presidents, and their people may have been very much relieved; but they were not leaders capable of communicating to the American People a vision of themselves as sovereign. President Reagan had a way of experiencing American life with the American People and recounting that experience in ways that made us proud, even in our darkest moments.
I know, on occasion, that I am more pessimistic and stoic than most; but, if I am, it is because I have read about and listened to the greatest patriots and thinkers our nation has ever known. So, out of respect for them and an unwillingness to disparage their memory, I hold high standards for those that would call themselves “Republican”.
There was nothing about Lincoln, or Coolidge, or Reagan, which prevents the mere mortals of our age from aspiring to and attaining their virtue and common sense. This is not a more complicated time, nor is it more violent, more hazardous, or more frightening. In many ways, absent a civil war, absent the great powers of Europe staring each other down, and absent the daily threat of nuclear catastrophe, this is a simpler and easier time for all Americans.
I do not think it too great a reach to hope for leaders today, that would rival our great leaders of the past; nor do I expect it impossible to discover them. What I lament – what pierces my peace, my hope, and my levity – is that we no longer are brave enough to set our expectations so high. We rarely set them in the middle. Instead, we set our expectations as low as any common denominator, and complain, like school children, when we don’t get what we so undeservedly demand.
14 comments
The Virginian Republican has the opportunity to do something great as Lincoln did and that is not go after the illegal alien himself but to go after the way he is illegally employed I believe Virginia Republicans are not up to this sort of integrity they cannot turn away the money , It has more political clout to blame someone else for not enforcing their laws (immigration laws ) rather than enforcing our laws
( statute 54.1 – 1100 and The Virginian employment compensation act ). example being Governor McDonnel in his government overreach wanting to check the immigration status of Latinos in traffic stops yet could not and did not investigate unlicensed contractors / illegal aliens. McNugget had a 2.9 Million Dollar Surplus in DPOR he chose not to use this money for investigations but for political clout an opening our rest areas. Some of our Representatives integrity can be compared to that of a pristine cattle farmer others are mere goat ropers.
President-elect Donald Trump has a fantastic new tax plan. If you don’t believe it, just ask him.
Well, actually, it’s not “new.”
It’s basically the same Republican tax plan that destroys the poor and working classes every time it gets enacted. Trump says the largest tax reductions are for the middle class. He also has a bridge in New York to sell you if you believe that. If you are wealthy, guess
what? You will get to pretend that you are going to “create jobs” with your new found wealth—on top of the wealth you already have. If you are in the middle class? Sorry, Charlie!
Most married couples with three or more children would also pay higher taxes, an analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found. And while middle-class families as a whole would receive tax cuts of about 2 percent, they’d be dwarfed by the windfalls averaging 13.5
percent for America’s richest 1 percent.
How about single-parent households that make decent money?
“If you’re a low- or moderate-income single parent, you’re going to get hurt,” said Bob Williams, a fellow at the Tax Policy Center.
But Lily Batchelder, a visiting fellow at the Tax Policy Center and former deputy director of President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council, estimates that roughly 7.9 million families with children would pay higher taxes under his proposals. About 5.8 million
are led by single parents. An additional 2.1 million are married couples.
Teabaggers, Bullshitting Elephant readers and Breitbart may pooh-pooh the source, but Batchelder’s findings match those of conservative think-tankers as well. The problem is that Trump’s tax plan gets rid of personal exemptions, which would not be off-set by his modest reductions. In the end, this is no surprise to anyone but the idiots who thought that getting another plateful of the same trickle-down economic plan that has never worked in the history of man would be successful this time.
This nation is headed into a very long, very dark tunnel with no light at the end.
I’m 72 and have 10 – 12 years to live. While most of me is angry and sad to see my grandsons will not live in the world I have enjoyed, a part of me is ROTFLMAO at all you Trumpsters who will lose Medicare, social security, ACA medical insurance . . . whose 401k’s will tank . . . whose taxes go up while they search for that job that’s not coming back.
Tucker never mentioned Trump once, yet you spout this nonsense. You are an object of mockery here; why bother trolling?
Fidel Castro dead at 90: Cuban TV https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/04c874c3f55ffff611b69ecb7c0c942c7cf53e73bd72e77427f90fdc2e7711b2.jpg
,,, https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4629e601245bfa6243fa8b524183b294cc895d57617b3e46148b2e46dc67ebee.jpg
Another fun fact:
Anthony Weiner sexts an adult woman and the rightwing goes berserk.
Republican lawmaker sexts an underage boy and . . . well, big deal!!!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mike-yenni-text-messages-not-gay_us_58386dfde4b09b6056007d68
Yup
A girl who is 15 years old is not an adult woman.
well, maybe to an old redneck! ; >}) Wasn’t the legal marriage age for girls around 12 in some southern states in the not distant past?
lol right. 🙂
Fun Fact: Coolidge had the second largest margin of popular vote victory in presidential history.
I honestly didn’t know that.
From Lincoln, Eisenhower, and Reagan, the following video shows us the depths to which the republican party has descended. I mean, I’m a liberal Democrat and now I find myself longing for W.
Video from Delta flight, Nov 25, 2016.
https://youtu.be/6nrv4jLhDd8
Did you see the woman at Michael”s who felt like she was being discriminated because she was white and voted for Trump? That was equally absurd.